20 Minutes with Bronwyn

Diet Culture Needs to Die: My Conversation with Vanessa Rissetto

I have historically had a VERY fraught relationship with eating. 

 

I grew up in Orange County, California, where eating disorders were a rite of passage. And I don’t say that flippantly—almost everyone I knew growing up had a disordered relationship to eating, myself included.

 

I remember pulling into the student parking lot at my high school and seeing some kid’s Volkswagen decorated with a bumper sticker that read, “No Fat Chicks, my Bug will Scrape.” I remember feeling a sense of alarm … like, I had just been schooled on one of the fundamental rules of adolescence in my community: DO NOT be fat. Whatever else you may do.

 

I know this tortured dynamic isn’t unique to me. Most women I know have a difficult relationship with food. 

 

It’s VERY confusing to have a tortured relationship to something you literally cannot  live without.Food is a fact of our humanity. But for so many of us, it is a fact shrouded in myth and morality and twisted by culture. 

 

It’s a mess.

 

My guest today is someone who I think has the potential to break through the misinformation (and frankly, the misogyny) associated with food. Her name is Vanessa Rissetto, and I fell madly in love with her during this conversation. I know you will too.

 

Vanessa is a registered dietician who Essence named “one of the top 5 black nutritionists that will make you change the way you think about nutrition”.

 

The Ravenmother Manifesto: Reclaiming the Power of Working Motherhood

A few weeks ago, I was giving one of my favorite talks to a team of professionals at one of my favorite clients. The talk is all about how to build a powerful morning ritual. Something that sets you up for excellence, all day long.

At one point, a woman in the session asked me a question … as a mother, how do you get over the feeling of guilt that comes with taking all that time for yourself?

I nearly tore my skin off when she asked this. 

Why? For about a million different reasons …

Because I too have felt this gut-twisting guilt.

Because I know that women feel it far more often and more acutely than men feel it.

Because I know that question is tied to a much deeper truth about working mothers that we struggle to articulate.

That guilt that we feel anytime we take time for ourselves is tied to something poisonous in our culture.

This episode is my attempt to shine a light on my journey as a working mother, and how I’ve developed a working rapport with that guilt. 

This episode is my attempt to reclaim and redefine what it means to be a “good mother”. 

But most of all, this episode is my love letter to every single working mother out there.

Ravenmothers*: We ride at dawn.

 

A Big, Beautiful, (Sober) Life: My Conversation with Maryann Minck

The past 18 months have brought a LOT of change and adaptation.

 

Some of the ways we adapted during the pandemic have been incredibly useful. We took a long, hard look at what we say yes to. What we say no to. If we weren’t already great at washing our hands, we sure as hell are now.

 

But there is one adaptation that makes me nervous. 

 

That my friends … is our increased consumption of alcohol. 

 

And when I say “our” I really mean MY relationship to alcohol, and perhaps you can relate. It went from a weekend funtime activity to a daily unwind ritual. That’s a major jump in consumption.

 

Apparently, I’m not alone in this. This specific adaptation—leaning on alcohol to get through the past year and a half—has disproportionately affected women.

 

According to a RAND Corporation survey on alcohol consumption,  during the Covid-19 pandemic, women have upped their “heavy drinking days” (that’s defined by 4 or more glasses a day) by 41% compared to pre-pandemic. 

 

Here’s the thing : Not all of us are “alcoholics,” but a LOT of us are drinking alcoholically. 

 

I’m worried about us. And I wanted to talk to someone about their journey dealing with alcohol and addiction, and what a life of sobriety could look like.

 

And I could think of no better guide, no better teacher than my dear friend Maryann Minck. Maryann Minck is a treasure. She’s on Instagram (if you don’t already follow her, you really should), and she is a private chef to some VERY fancy people in Laguna Beach california. Think big wigs. Think celebs. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know Maryann because during the pandemic 1.0, she and I did an IG live most Sundays called Cooking with Coco. (She and I have known each other since we were 6 years old, and have called each other Coco for decades, hence the name of the IG lives.)

 

Here are quick links to the resources she mentioned during the conversation:

 

The Promises Poem

The AA “Big Book”

How to find a chapter near you.

 

So sit back, pour yourself a “decompression Perrier” as Maryann says, and enjoy my dear friend Maryann Minck.

 

Shine on … we need your light.

 

B

Martyr Much? When Self Sacrifice Becomes Weaponized

Welcome to Season 4! To kick things off, I wanted to focus on the toxic communication pattern of martyrdom.

Why? Because as communication patterns go, few are as unnerving and damaging to our relationships as martyrdom, AND as communication patterns go, few are as EFFECTIVE in a twisted sense as playing the role of martyr.

As they say, we repeat behaviors because on some level, they WORK. Which is why it is so difficult to STOP.

So why is martyrdom so powerful? And what can we do about it when it surfaces inside of ourselves, or in others? That's what we're talking about this week. 

Our Mess is Our Message: My Conversation with Jessica Zweig

As you may already know, authenticity is kind of a big deal to me.

It’s the cornerstone of my work in the world. As a communication coach, I’m NEVER interested in “polishing” someone as a communicator. I’m interested in revealing someone in their truest most beautiful form.

And I’ve been doing this for a LONG time. The good thing about being devoted to a practice, to a craft, is that you feel quite confident, and quite sure of yourself. The bad thing about being devoted to a craft is that sometimes you think "What could this person possibly teach me? I do this for a living."

But that’s exactly what my guest today did, she taught me to see a blind spot in my own pursuit of authenticity.

My friends, I’d like to you meet Jessica Zweig, most of the SimplyBe podcast, author of Be. - A No Bullsh*t Guide to Increasing Your Self Worth and Net Worth By Simply Being Yourself

She is an award-winning entrepreneur, personal branding expert, the founder and CEO of SimplyBe. Agency where she works with entrepreneurs, creatives CEOs and the companies they lead to help them grow on and offline by leveraging the most powerful marketing tool on the planet: authenticity.

Shut Up and Write: Why You Need a Journaling Practice

This episode is dedicated 100% to pulling back the curtain of my journaling practice, not because I think it’s unique or special, but because it is probably the single most important ritual I have. My journaling practice is more important to me than therapy. Exercise. Diet. Even church. Truly, if you asked me to sacrifice any of my rituals, you would have to pry journaling from my cold dead hands.

Why? Because my journaling practice is the “room of one’s own” that Virginia Wolf talked about … a place out beyond the voices of my family of origin, friends, children, husband, clients, partners, neighbors, and anyone else I come into contact with. It is the engine of my productivity, creativity, and frankly spirituality and I'm here to tell you how to get this engine fired up in your own life.

Gender, Identity and the Quest for Authenticity: My Conversation with Sean Garcia

June of 2014, for the first time in its history, a trans woman—the luminous Laverne Cox— was featured on the cover of Time Magazine, with the headline: The Transgender Tipping Point. Just this April, Elliot Page became the first trans man to grace the cover of the magazine.

Whether 2014 marked the “tipping point” for popular culture’s reckoning with the transgender community is debatable … because here we are 7 years later, still trying to tip. Still trying to understand.

In 2014, I would say that the experience of knowing someone trans was still fairly unusual. But in 2021? It seems like all of us are 1 degree separated from someone going through the experience of reconciling identity and gender.

My guest today is the incredible Sean Garcia, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, working in private practice in San Jose. Sean is passionate about serving the needs of transgender/gender variant persons and their families as well as the neurodiverse population. He is currently the only transgender-identified licensed therapist in Silicon Valley who facilitates a monthly transgender group for adolescents and teens. Sean's story, insights and wisdom *changed* the way I see the world. My hope is that he will do the same for you.

How to "People" Again: Field Notes for Re-Entry

In a post-vaccinated population, it's open season for socializing and it's ... awkward. Wonderful. Exhausting. And also terribly anxiety producing for some of us. As a communication coach, I’m fascinated by all of it, and have been taking field notes on what is the most challenging, the most excruciating parts of "peopling," and why.

In this episode I offer solutions to the three biggest communication problems I've encountered post vaccination, and I offer three solutions to make it all a bit less tortured, and more nourishing.

Own Your Own Truth: Story Design with Paulo Sellitti

We talk a lot on this show about the power of story. But what we haven’t yet covered is storytelling in the context of how we talk about our businesses.

If you are an entrepreneur running a startup, or trying to raise money in the venture capital community ... If you are a solo-preneur or coach building your business ... If you are someone trying to create momentum and generate more revenue in your business, this is the episode for you. My guest today has some words of wisdom that could just change the trajectory of your business.

Hate Conflict? My Favorite Exercise for Becoming Savvy & Strong

Our capacity to handle tough moments at work can mean the difference between upward mobility and infuriating stagnation. But for too many of us, conflict is our kryptonite. In this episode, I will walk you through my favorite exercise for transforming our relationship to conflict.